Raphael Stevens

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    Cornwall, home of the climate-themed G-7 summit, is embracing a push toward renewable energy

    A wind turbine photographed in, Camelford, Cornwall, at sunset.Ashley Cooper | Corbis | Getty ImagesThis year’s G-7 summit will be held in the county of Cornwall, a part of southwest England known for its stunning coastline, historic fishing communities and natural beauty.As well as being a popular destination for tourists — the county’s beaches are thronged with holidaymakers during the summer — Cornwall is also becoming something of a hub for companies working on projects focused on renewables and innovation.  This week, a number of these developments took significant steps forward. On Wednesday, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson installed the first solar panels at a facility described as the United Kingdom’s “first utility-scale energy park.”According to energy firm ScottishPower, which is a subsidiary of Spain’s Iberdrola, 10,000 panels will be installed at the site. The 10 megawatt solar farm will supplement a 20 MW wind farm that’s already in operation and a 1 MW battery storage system.ScottishPower said the energy park at Carland Cross — which is a short drive from Carbis Bay, a small coastal resort set to be the epicenter of the G-7 talks — would be able to generate enough energy “to power the equivalent of 15,000 homes.”While Johnson is keen to be seen as someone who embraces renewables and prioritizes sustainability, the fact he flew to Cornwall rather than take an alternative form of transport drew stinging criticism from some quarters.In a response to his detractors that was widely reported by the U.K. media, Johnson is quoted as saying: “If you attack my arrival by plane, I respectfully point out the U.K. is actually in the lead in developing sustainable aviation fuel, and one of the points in the 10 point plan of our green industrial revolution is to get to ‘jet zero’ as well.”As well as wind and solar projects, Cornwall is also home to a fledgling geothermal energy sector. A company called Geothermal Engineering Limited is working on a number of projects, including a geothermal swimming pool in the town of Penzance.The business is also developing the United Downs Deep Geothermal Power Project near the town of Redruth.Focused on the creation of a geothermal power plant, the United Downs project has been years in the making and is centered around two wells which are 5,275 and 2,393 meters (17,306 and 7,851 feet respectively) deep.On Monday, a firm called Cornish Lithium announced it had successfully built a geothermal water test site at United Downs. The company’s aim is to trial direct lithium extraction technologies on shallow and deep geothermal waters.In a statement issued alongside the announcement Cornish Lithium’s CEO, Jeremy Wrathall, said his company’s test site at United Downs provided it with “an opportunity to demonstrate what modern, low-carbon mineral extraction looks like.” The results, he added, would “inform the development” of a larger pilot plant.As sales of electric cars increase and the planet’s hunger for tech grows, materials such as lithium will be important in the years ahead, a point Cornish Lithium makes on its website.”As vital components of batteries used for electric vehicles and energy storage,” it says, “the potential opportunity to extract metals such as lithium, tin and cobalt in Cornwall could represent a significant strategic advantage for the United Kingdom.”While Cornwall is home to a number of land-based energy projects, nearby waters also offer scope for development.In April, for instance, it was announced that a research project focused on the potential of tidal, wave and floating wind technology had secured support from Marine-i, a program centered around innovation in areas such as marine energy.The project will be based on the Isles of Scilly, an archipelago located off the Cornish coast, and led by Isles of Scilly Community Venture, Planet A Energy and Waves4Power.According to Marine-i, which is part-funded by the European Regional Development Fund, the overarching aim of the Isles of Scilly project is to “build a new databank of wave and tidal resource data.”This data will include information on a range of metrics including wave height, wind speed and tidal stream velocities. More

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    Ride-hailing giant Didi wants to be more than just the Uber of China

    A user opens the Didi Chuxing ride-hailing smartphone app in Shanghai, China, on Sept. 18, 2020.Qilai Shen | Bloomberg | Getty ImagesBEIJING — China’s version of Uber, Didi Chuxing, is trying to use car travel as a way into multiple aspects of daily life from grocery shopping to finance.Didi filed Thursday to list in New York in what many expect could be the largest initial public offering in the world this year. Founded in 2012, the company ranks among the five largest privately held start-ups in the world and counts SoftBank, Uber and Tencent as major investors.Smartphone-based ride hailing in China remains Didi’s primary business, generating $20.4 billion in revenue last year amid overall net losses of $1.62 billion, according to the prospectus. But as Didi swung to a profit in the first quarter of this year, the revenue share of “other initiatives” rose to 5%, from 4% for all of 2020. That’s up from 1.2% in 2018.A quick look at Didi’s smartphone app reveals a slew of other products tied to bike sharing, movers, personal finance and gas stations. The array of icons resembles that of Alibaba-affiliated Alipay, whose app is not only a mobile pay platform but one that allows users to book airplane tickets and pay for utilities. Similarly, Southeast Asia’s prevailing ride-hailing app Grab delivers food and wants to become a regional leader in mobile payments.Eight kinds of car servicesDidi is the primary app for ride hailing in China, even with the entry of several other players, including ones that focus on the high-end (Shouqi) or new energy vehicles (Cao Cao).Users can choose from eight options on Didi, ranging from carpooling to luxury car service. Didi also lets users hail taxis through its app, and runs a chauffer business that assigns drivers to car owners who may have had too much alcohol or cannot drive their own vehicle for other reasons. These temporary drivers can travel between assignments on fold-up bicycles.The company said it had 377 million annual active users and 13 million annual active drivers in China for the 12 months ended March 31. Didi said it made 133.64 billion yuan ($20.88 billion) in the “China mobility” category last year.Including Didi’s other services like e-bikes and freight, customer costs for different kinds of products can run from 15 cents to more than $100, the prospectus said.Building up a finance armDidi said in its prospectus that bike and e-bike sharing contributed the most last year to its total revenue of 5.76 billion yuan from “other initiatives.” Other businesses in the category include intra-city freight, automobile leasing, community group buying and financial services.The company said in August that its financial technology arm Didi Finance — which was not mentioned in the prospectus — announced a partnership with the Bank of Shanghai for consumer financial services and other digital financial products.Didi has also partnered with China Merchants Bank for supporting credit card applications through the ride-hailing app and offering installment purchase plans for cars. A Didi subsidiary works with Ping An Insurance to sell financing and lease-related products, as well as insurance.The start-up leases vehicles to drivers at prices it claims are about 20% lower than outside Didi’s platform. While more than 600,000 vehicles are available for lease, about half of these are owned by roughly 3,000 vehicle leasing partners, reducing the amount of assets Didi is responsible for, the prospectus said.Anecdotally, Didi was recently promoting its own mobile payment system to some users in Beijing by setting it as the default payment option — with a discount. Users had to manually select other options such as WeChat pay, after which the discount was removed.Didi’s ride-hailing app also works with international credit cards. The company operates in 15 countries, including Brazil, Mexico and Japan.Bets on electricMany analysts expect that self-driving, shared vehicles will become a major mode of transportation in the future, rather than individual car ownership.Didi has invested in its own autonomous driving unit, which launched “robotaxis” in part of Shanghai in June 2020. The ride-hailing company announced in November it co-developed an electric car with BYD called the D1, which would roll out to major Chinese cities in subsequent months.In May, the autonomous driving unit and state-backed GAC Aion New Energy Automobile agreed to work toward mass production of fully self-driving new energy cars.Didi claims it has the largest electric vehicle charging network in China, based on self-commissioned research.Data privacy and other risksDidi’s planned IPO in New York comes as tensions between the U.S. and China have built up over the last few years. The ride hailing giant spent almost three pages of its prospectus discussing risks of delisting from being unable to comply with U.S. government audit requirements.The Chinese government’s increased scrutiny on tech companies regarding monopolistic practices and general regulatory scrutiny on data privacy are also risks Didi named in its prospectus.In 2018, Didi came under fire from Chinese social media users — who called for deletion of the app — after a woman was allegedly raped and killed by a driver. As a result, Didi announced it would record audio during car trips, which would be deleted after seven days.Didi did not specifically mention this feature in its prospectus. More

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    Slow jobs growth may not be a bad sign for America’s recovery

    AMERICA’S LATEST jobs reports landed with resounding thuds. Upbeat Wall Street forecasters had expected firms to add 1m new jobs in April. Employers made them look foolish, taking on just under 300,000 new workers instead. Punters lowered their expectations for May but still wound up disappointed, when on June 4th the Bureau of Labour Statistics reported net employment growth of just 559,000: a decent showing in normal times, but unsatisfying when millions remain out of work. Underwhelming job gains look increasingly mysterious given firms’ desperation to hire. With roughly one job vacancy available for every person out of work, you would think that America’s labour-market problems could be solved soon enough. But a leisurely pace of jobs growth does not necessarily indicate that the economic recovery has gone wrong. A deeper dive into the figures suggests that it could simply reflect the difficulties of matching millions of workers with jobs at a time of unprecedented economic flux.Listen to this storyYour browser does not support the element.Enjoy more audio and podcasts on More

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    Why the market for secondhand private-equity stakes is thriving

    AT MIDNIGHT ON August 31st 1602, the public offering of shares in a new kind of enterprise closed. The charter for the venture, the Dutch East India Company, granted it a monopoly on trade with Asia until 1623, at which time, it was assumed, the firm would be liquidated. Twenty-one years is a long wait for capital to be returned. Smaller maritime ventures were generally wound up and the spoils divided after three or four years, when (and if) the ships returned. So shareholders were given an option to cash out after ten years. It hardly mattered. A faster exit route soon opened up.Listen to this storyYour browser does not support the element.Enjoy more audio and podcasts on More

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    Will empty shopfronts revive as New York comes back to life?

    SIT BY BAR Pisellino, a chic watering hole in the West Village, a swanky neighbourhood in Manhattan, and the world seems to have righted itself. Patrons munch on fat green olives and sip fizzy aperitifs as they watch well-heeled shoppers, newly returned to the streets, go by.Listen to this storyYour browser does not support the element.Enjoy more audio and podcasts on More

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    MLB Hall of Fame catcher Johnny Bench on sticky baseball controversy: 'A little pine tar never hurt'

    Hall of Fame catcher Johnny Bench told CNBC that the headlines about pitchers using pine tar or other sticky substances on baseballs shouldn’t come as a surprise to fans. “Yes, they use pine tar, of course they use pine tar, everybody has used pine tar since I was a rookie in 1967,” said the former Cincinnati Reds catcher.”Don’t get excited, these are the things that the pitcher needs to do,” Bench said. “A little pine tar never hurt, come on. Hold on to it. Get that grip going, baby.” Bench added that the seam of the baseball has gotten smaller since his pitching days — using a sticky substance on the ball gives the pitcher something to grip on to, he said. MLB officials are considering a crackdown, as Major League pitchers dominate more than ever. The league has seen six no-hitters already this season, on pace to shatter the record of eight, set in 1884. Insiders say one problem could be what’s hidden on pitchers’ hands, like pine tar or a sticky glue called “Spider Tack.” Last week the league suspended four minor league pitchers for illegally using foreign substances on baseballs.  Bench, however, pointed to subpar hitting during a Thursday evening interview on  “The News with Shepard Smith.”  More

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    Meme stocks hit a wall on Thursday with GameStop, AMC and Clover down big

    In this articleAMCGMECLNECLOVThe WallStreetBets forum on the Reddit Inc. website on a laptop computer and the logo on a smartphone arranged in Hastings-On-Hudson, New York, U.S., on Friday, Jan. 29, 2021.Tiffany Hagler-Geard | Bloomberg | Getty ImagesThe meme stock mania created by the day trading Reddit crowd fizzled a bit on Thursday.It’s easy come, easy go for many speculative names favored by retail investors including AMC Entertainment and GameStop as they suffered double-digit losses on Thursday, pulling back from their recent explosive rallies. The video game retailer shed 27.2% even after announcing two high-profile executive hires from Amazon. The movie theater chain dropped 13.2% on Thursday, turning negative on the week.Another red-hot meme stock Clover Health, which at one point was the focus of the WallStreetBets message board this week, pulled back 15.3% on Thursday. Clean Energy Fuels, which rallied more than 31% just Wednesday, tumbled 15.6%.Meme stocks taking a hitIf the January trading mania is any guide, it’s not surprising that these latest rallies are turning out to be short-lived. A CNBC PRO analysis available exclusively to subscribers found that on average, Reddit stocks’ runs lasted nine trading days from the start to their first big drop during the initial frenzy at the beginning of 2021.CNBC identified the starting point for five stocks popular on message boards earlier this year — GameStop, AMC, Bed Bath & Beyond, BlackBerry and Koss — by finding the first time each stocks’ single-day trading volume at least doubled its 30-day moving average of shares traded. That typically represents the point at which a flurry of new investors took interest in a stock that was not being heavily traded.Stock picks and investing trends from CNBC Pro:Goldman Sachs names the South Korean stocks that could be inflation winnersTop investment strategist David Roche says inflation is here to stay. Here’s whySingapore stocks are ‘not expensive’ — here are some top picks by a major Asian bankOn Thursday, GameStop investors seemed to be running for the exits after the company said it appointed former Amazon executive Matt Furlong as its new CEO. It also picked another Amazon veteran, Mike Recupero, as chief financial officer. Meanwhile the company’s fiscal first-quarter results showed sales up 25% and a narrower loss than it reported a year ago.The decline in stock came as GameStop also said it may sell as many as 5 million shares. Additional shares dilute the value of existing shareholders’ stakes. The stock is still up more than 1,000% on the year, however.AMC is down for a second straight day after soaring 83% last week. The movie theater chain, which was on the brink of bankruptcy not long ago, managed to sell 20 million shares in two separate deals last week amid the rally, generating around $800 million in capital.— CNBC’s Nate Rattner contributed reporting.Enjoyed this article?For exclusive stock picks, investment ideas and CNBC global livestreamSign up for CNBC ProStart your free trial now More

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    Here’s why cryptocurrency crashes on weekends

    Jack Taylor | Getty Images News | Getty ImagesCryptocurrency is known for volatility and some experts say crashes tend to happen on weekends.”This has been a phenomenon in crypto for several years,” said Stephen McKeon, associate professor of finance at the University of Oregon in Eugene, and partner at Collab+Currency, a cryptocurrency-focused investment fund. These weekend dips may have significant effects as regulators weigh the future of digital currency, experts say. Here’s why these crashes may be happening.Less trading on weekendsOne of the reasons for weekend cryptocurrency volatility is there are fewer trades, said Amin Shams, assistant professor of finance at Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio.”When the volume is low, the same trade size can move prices a lot more,” he said.With banks closed over the weekend, there is less trading because investors may not be able to add money to their accounts, McKeon said.More from Personal Finance:Advisors feel pull of cryptocurrency wave as clients express interestHis book looks at money’s history and explains cryptocurrency obsessionDivorcing spouses are using cryptocurrency to hide money. How experts find it”You get moments of market panic where there’s a lot of selling pressure,” he said. Typically, there’s a rebound on Sunday night as Asian banks open and into Monday as U.S. banks follow, McKeon said. Plus, there are cryptocurrency influencers like Tesla CEO Elon Musk who “wave a heavy hand over the crypto space,” said Tyrone Ross, CEO of Onramp Invest in New York.When Musk tweets something negative about bitcoin after-hours, it may spark a wave of activity.Trading on margin Another reason for weekend price swings may be investors trading cryptocurrency on margin, which is borrowing money from the exchanges to buy more assets, Shams said.When digital currency prices dip below a certain level, traders must repay the loan, known as a “margin call.” But if investors don’t cover the loan, exchanges may sell the digital currency to ensure they receive the borrowed money back.Read more about cryptocurrencies from CNBC ProJPMorgan says there’s weak bitcoin demand from big investors, crypto bear market could be on the wayBitcoin or gold? Top strategist David Roche outlines his play for hedging against inflationWhat’s really behind the bitcoin decline and why it could take the cryptocurrency as low as $20,000With banks closed over the weekend, some traders may struggle to pay off the borrowed funds because they can’t move money into their accounts, triggering sell-offs from exchanges, Shams said. “That’s going to drop the price further,” he added.Market manipulationIt’s also possible those trying to artificially influence cryptocurrency prices may be a factor. “There are a lot of studies that show there is [market] manipulation,” said Shams.For example, 2019 research shows how tether, a digital currency tied to the U.S. dollar, may have artificially inflated bitcoin and other cryptocurrency prices during the 2017 boom.But researchers still don’t know the extent to which it happens, he said. I have not personally seen any conclusive evidence that suggests manipulation.Stephen McKeonassociate professor of finance at the University of OregonOne theory points to so-called spoofing, involving fake buy or sell orders to influence cryptocurrency prices by creating a false sense of supply and demand. Some believe this happens more often during the week, causing digital currency prices to rise. But this theory may only be speculation, he said.Other experts say there are “mixed views” on these practices. “I have not personally seen any conclusive evidence that suggests manipulation,” McKeon said.Crypto ETFsRegardless of the reason for weekend volatility, it presents challenges for regulators weighing the approval of cryptocurrency-based exchange-traded funds.While ETFs trade during the work week, investors can buy or sell cryptocurrency 24 hours per day, seven days per week, and may create a mismatch for crypto ETFs, Shams said.For example, if the digital currency market drops by 20% on a Sunday, those eager to sell may be stuck with their crypto ETFs until the markets open again on Monday. Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Gary Gensler has called for greater investor protections for cryptocurrency, signaling more regulation may be necessary before the agency approves crypto ETFs. The SEC is currently reviewing bitcoin and ethereum ETF applications from several companies.Correction: Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies had a boom in 2017. An earlier version misstated the year. More